The After Party
by C.S. Bascom
Summary: A man of such importance, should remember who he was.


The After Party

"Who's a what?" The hung-over man responded to the garble of sounds he had just heard. At least, he thought he heard them.

The garbled noise was repeated again, almost exactly the same. The sleepy man, whose name just happened to be Alfred Militinni, rolled over. Personally, he was very proud he just remembered his own name, and even more so when he remembered that he always told his friends to call him Myles. When the garbled sound came back, this time agitated, his said the only thing that seemed proper in the situation.

"Relax, man." The garbled sound that Myles connected with a voice sounded angry again, if not even more angry. His mind was trying to put things together since a week ago, when he last remembered anything happening. After double checking that he indeed recently become a very important person, he felt loads better.

The garbled voice sounded clearer, he started to hear words, "Will….up? It's…'nd the….is waiting," it went on, but Myles tuned the rest out.

"What time is it?" he asked, propping himself up on his elbows. He kept his eyes shut, they weren't quite ready for action yet.

The voice made a sigh, "It's nearly noon! The press is here, Mr. Militinni, they've been waiting for hours. Now get up!"

Sitting up, Myles was thinking what a "nearly noon" was, and if had anything to do with food. As his brain was checking all the systems in his body, it found his stomach, who had nothing but crackers, cheese, wine, and other party-foods for weeks.

"She's on empty, captain," His stomach shouted to his brain.

"I know, only a little," his brain paused; he seemed preoccupied for a moment. "Just a bit farther."

"I'll do all I can, captain, but it's gonna drop us at any moment."

The brain didn't make any response. Finding this whole conversation amusing, Myles chuckled. The conversation seemed so familiar, he must have heard a similar one before.

"Why are you laughing?" Said the well dressed man standing next to him, "Come, get dressed!"

"Not so loud!" Myles shouted back to the stranger. "Get dressed," what did the man mean? Did he mean his space suit? No, that couldn't have been it, he lost his space suit. It got a hole in it, and he had to quickly get it back and rush into, where did he have to rush too?

"What time is it?" Myles asked again, preoccupied with his thoughts on suits.

"I already _told _you, Mr. Militinni. Its almost noon, the press are waiting on all the interviews you promised them, and you have no pants on!"

That was another piece of the puzzle, not a necessarily important piece, but a piece nonetheless. A little thought had been dancing around in his head for longer than it would have liked, finally it got to the mouth.

"Food?" was the little thought.

The well-dressed man sighed again, "If you must, I'll see if I can't fetch you something. In the meantime, put these on!" Myles was suddenly hit with what he discovered a moment later were a pair of rather nice pants. He was taken of guard by the throw, and fell over on the pool-side bench he had been sleeping on.

After an attempt to put the pants on while standing up failed, Myles sat down and put them on like a child would. The sun was bright and hot, much more than he remembered in his life before. Certainly brighter than it was on…

"Mr. Millitinni! Are you _still_ getting dressed?" The well dressed man, who was obviously in a rush, came over quickly, interrupting Myles' thoughts.

"Food?" asked Myles again, in a moment or so, he was sure he would be able to speak in full sentences. He had already made excellent head way in thinking in them. He would have to send the new idea to his mouth. Who knows? Maybe when it got there, it wouldn't work, some silly compatibility problem with the ship. Ship? No, he meant body, that's right.

"You're so single minded," the hurried man gave Myles a breakfast bar. Not quite what Myles expected, but then again, he did have a gold platter in mind. Maybe he should have just gone with silver. The thought of his own pompous nature made him chuckle again.

"What-is-so-funny?" Said the man, tapping his foot, "Sometimes, I wish I knew what was going on in your head, just so I could beat what ever it was out of you!"

Still sitting on the ground, Myles slowly ate his small breakfast. He was thinking about getting up, but there were more pressing matters in his head at the moment. Finding no answer, Myles asked the man,

"What time is it?"

There was an aggravated sigh from the man. "Its time for you to get up!" Suddenly, the world according to Myles got very jumpy, and everything moved down very quickly. At that moment, his head decided to take a swim. When it finished, Myles found himself in a large house. It was completely trashed. Which was a shame, because at the same moment he recognized as a mess, he recognized it was his. He had bought it recently, he thought, with all that money from NASA.

"You and your friends had lots of fun, a whole police unit had to come by and get everyone out. You're just lucky you're so famous now, otherwise they would have arrested you too. Why, if I hadn't of told them who you were…" The annoying man went on, and again Myles tuned him out.

"Who is this guy?" he asked himself, "Is he my butler? Did he come with the house? Do butlers come with big houses? What if you move from one big house to another, can you keep your old butler? Who is this guy? I wish he'd shut up. Man, my house is a wreck. It's a nice house, though." His thoughts traveled in vague loops as his butler dragged him in a more or less straight line through his house, trying to avoid as much clothing, broken furniture, and various other wild party left-overs as possible.

"Here, wash up," Myles' butler said, as they came to a door. Myles stepped inside.

After re-teaching himself in a crash course on shaving, with minimal failed exams, Myles came out of the bathroom. He was clean and refreshed. He had even remembered to use after-shave, which masked his over all negative smell. Right before he left, he used mouth-wash, which helped too.

"There, you don't take too long to clean up." Said his butler, almost satisfied.

"No, I guess not." He said. His brain gave a silent sigh of relief; the idea of whole sentences did work in the mouth.

The brain checked all systems, and found every last one operational. Once it gave the thumbs up, he switched Myles to auto-pilot. Auto-pilot decided things weren't all ship-shape, and that the body needed to sleep.

"I need a nap," Myles said, as he followed his butler to wherever his butler was leading him.

"Mr. Militinni, you just woke up from a fourteen hour slumber, you can't need a nap."

"Well, I'm still hung over. I need a nap."

"Well, to bad." Said his butler, Myles didn't find this very fair.

"What's so important that I can't take a short nap?"

"Mr. Militinni, you can't be serious." His butler turned around and had a face of disbelief. "You are the captain of the most important manned space mission since we landed on the moon. You lead three men through space; beyond any reach man has ever gone. You save the ship from crashing when the fuel cells were on empty, and you don't remember? That conversation, the recording of how you handled the low-fuel situation is going to be used in training for generations to come! Mr. Militinni, you're telling me you don't remember?"

Myles wasn't sure. But that did confirm the thought he had about becoming very famous. As far as remembering anything, it was still very vague. The puzzle had a large chunk missing. He wished he knew where it was.

After making the connection with the familiarity of the conversation his brain and his stomach, and one that had actually happened, he sent a small part of his brain off to search his memory, to see if it could find anything on it.

In the meantime, all this thinking made him hungry again, but then there was the problem with answering his butler's question.

"Kinda," Was the basic response. He moved on to more important matters. "Listen, I'm wicked hungry, where's the food?" His New England heritage shown

through in the young man.

"Your hopeless, Mr. Militinni. Never mind that now. We have to go to the press room." His butler started to walk away.

"My house has a press room?"  
"Yes. I believe just a few nights ago you referred to it as your 'big-ass, expensive, far-out place.' I think you were giving a tour. I was there, to help with stairs"

"Oh, right, _that_ press room," Myles said, slightly embarrassed. He seemed to remember getting into a fight with a chair in that room.

He found a nice pair of flip-flops, among the mess of the party, and wore them as they walked down stairs to the press room. This part of the house was relatively clean. With the exception of a stain in the occasional carpet, and a dent in a wall, who ever cleaned here, did a nice job.

"It took me hours, to clean here. Finally, the press said they didn't care, and just wanted to talk with the Martian." Myles' butler said.

"Martian?" Myles asked. Last he checked, which he couldn't remember doing, he was from Earth, and not Mars.

"Yes, that's what they call you now, Mr. Militinni."

"Oh," said Myles, not seeing at all.

They arrived at a large double door. The butler opened one and squeezed his body inside, leaving it open by propping his foot in the gap. The sound of camera's shutters was heard, accompanied by flashing lights.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you," the butler paused for the dramatic feel, "The first man on Mars!" He flung open the door, revealing a very surprised Mr. Militinni, who was blinking in the flashes of the cameras.

He opened his mouth, about to talk completely unassisted. But luckily, the small part of his brain he sent off came back. It found a whole memory about the first manned mission to Mars, in which Myles was the captain of. "Oh, that makes sense now," he told the press room. It was meant to be to the small part of his brain.


End file.
